As part of NIH's overall Consensus Development effort, BEIB is planning to host a conference on "The Use of Microprocessor-Based 'Intelligent' Machines in Patient Care" on October 17-19 in the Washington, D.C. area. The branch will provide conference participants with a set of introductory working papers which arose out of four planning workshops in 1978. The participants to the upcoming conference will seek agreement on social and technical issues underlying the development of medical systems which contain microprocessors.